


Chocolate

by Pholo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 18:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pholo/pseuds/Pholo
Summary: “Forget the chocolate shake,” Shiro says. “If someone managed to find me a bar of chocolate, I would marry them on the spot.”Keith’s brain short-circuits.It’s like the fuse for an entire city blew out. The conversation goes on around him, but the words are barely radio fuzz at the back of Keith’s head. He’s stock-still on the couch, rigid like a plank of wood, his whole world reduced to five words:Marry them on the spot.





	Chocolate

The level five training bots are a nightmare.

Keith enters the common area with a lilt to his step. His hunched posture rivals an old man’s. He’s too tired to maintain his aloof persona; he reaches the ring of couches, and collapses onto the closest seat with all the grace of a sack of flour.

There’s a soft scratch of fabric as Shiro sits at Keith’s side. The older Paladin leans back, groaning as the cushions catch a bruise on his side. Keith mumbles a word of sympathy, too tired for coherence.

“What I wouldn’t give,” Hunk begins, as he too succumbs to the pull of the couch, “for a cheeseburger right now.”

“Huuunk,” Lance whines. He’s upside down on his part of the couch, his legs thrown over the back with his torso on the main cushion. He flaps the arm he’s draped over his eyes. “Don’t do this to me, buddy. I’m so hungry…”

But Hunk plows on: “A nice chunk of fresh, red meat, seasoned with onion powder, salt and pepper…cooked to perfection, pressed between two oiled and toasted sesame seed buns—with bacon and lettuce on top.” Hunk mimics the sprinkling of herbs on a platter. “Just imagine the _smell_.”

Lance makes a low noise. “I don’t waaaaannaaaaa’.”

“I miss McDonald’s,” Pidge says. “I miss french fries and shakes.” She kicks up her feet, and winces at the sudden movement. “God, I could do for a chocolate shake…”

“Forget the chocolate shake,” Shiro says. “If someone managed to find me a bar of chocolate, I would marry them on the spot.”

Keith’s brain short-circuits.

It’s like the fuse for an entire city blew out. The conversation goes on around him, but the words are barely radio fuzz at the back of Keith’s head. He’s stock-still on the couch, rigid like a plank of wood, his whole world reduced to five words:

_Marry them on the spot._

 

 

Keith corners Hunk in the castle kitchen the next day. “How do you make chocolate?”

Hunk turns from the stovetop, holding a bottle of what looks like purple pepper. “What?”

“Chocolate,” Keith repeats. “How do you make chocolate.”

Keith tightens his crossed arms as Hunk looks him up and down. A sauce bubbles on the stove. With practiced precision, Hunk thumbs down the heat button.

There’s a pause—then a terrible, tangible moment when the switch flips in Hunk’s brain.

He grins like a Disney villain.

“You want to make Shiro a chocolate bar,” Hunk teases.

Keith hides his horror behind a scowl. “He’s been really stressed lately—”

“You wanna’ make Shiro a _chocolate bar_.”

“Hunk—”

“You wanna’ _marry him_.”

“I do not want to marry him!” Keith cries, throwing up his hands. “I just want to do something nice for my friend, okay? Is that so unheard of?”

Hunk doesn’t reply; just continues to smirk with all the delighted malignancy of a cat about to push something expensive off a table.

Keith looks away, flustered. His gaze flitters around for a while before locking on a ceiling panel. “So what’s the answer? Do you know how to make it or not?”

“Sorry buddy,” Hunk says, embarrassed suddenly. He turns to stir the liquid on the stove. “I mean, I know how to make a knockoff version of chocolate. But to get that authentic creamy taste we’d need actual milk, and it’s not like we’re gonna’ find that in spa—” He pauses. “Oh.”

 

 

“Lance, can we borrow your cow?”

Lance doesn’t so much as lift his sleep mask. He flaps his fingers at the doorway of his room, where Hunk and Keith block the light from the hallway. “Technically Pidge and I have joint custody, but sure, I doubt she’ll mind.” Lance sniffs suddenly. “Wait; did you say ‘we’? Who’s ‘we?'”

“Keith’s here too,” Hunk supplies.

Lance lifts the corner of his mask. His eyes cut through the dark, narrowed and dangerous. “You’d let Keith near my poor Kaltenecker?” he accuses. “He’ll take one look at him and dice him up for patties!”

“Lance, Kaltenecker’s a dairy cow,” Keith says. “They’re always female.”

Lance bristles. “Hey! If I’ve learned one thing after a year of piloting giant space lions in an intergalactic war, it’s that dairy cows can be whatever gender they want.”

“All right, all right,” Hunk pleads, before Keith can brew up a retort. “Lance, I promise Keith won’t hurt Kaltenecker. We’re just gonna’ milk him.”

“Yeah?” Lance says. He sidles up against his pillows. “For what?”

“We’re making chocolate.”

“Chocolate?” Lance parrots. “Why are you and Keith—”

A moment of deadly silence, like the split second after a trigger-pull, when the pin bears down on the bullet cartridge. Keith watches as that same predatory grin splits Lance’s face.

“Oh.”

“Lance,” Keith warns, fully prepared to suffocate Lance with a pillow. “Don’t you dare—”

“He wants to make Shiro chocolate,” Lance says. “Oh my god. He wants to make Shiro _chocolate_.”

“I will throttle you. I will literally stuff that sleep mask down your throat and  _shake_ you like a maraca.”

“I can’t believe Keith’s gonna’ make Shiro _chocolate_!” Lance wrangles the sheets from his torso, scrambling out of bed in a flurry of robes. “I’ve gotta’ see this with my own two eyes. Hold on, lemme get dressed.”

 

 

Keith leans back against the wall. “So you do this every day?”

Lance repositions the bucket under Kaltenecker’s udders. “Well, yeah.” He scoots closer to the cow’s flank. “Pidge and I trade off. Like you said, he’s a dairy cow. He needs to be milked.”

Kaltenecker moos in agreement, crunching messily on discount space hay.

“It’s kinda’ sad, you know?” Lance continues, as another shot of milk meets the bucket. “'Cause for him to be producing milk, he’d’ve had to have given birth at some point. He has a baby out there somewhere.”

“Or the aliens messed with him somehow?” Hunk suggests. He approaches Kaltenecker and his hay pile.

“Sure.” Lance shrugs. Kaltenecker swishes his tail. “Kinda’ uncomfortable, but yeah.”

Hunk bends and presents Kaltenecker with a handful of hay. The cow blinks his big dopey eyes. He reaches out and nibbles the food from Hunk’s fingers.

“Ach!” Hunk protests. “Kalternecker, that tickles! Keith, come try this.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” Hunk uses his free hand to ruffle Kaltenecker’s fur, and Keith bites back a smile. “What’ve you been doing with the rest of the milk?”

Lance doesn’t look up from his work. “Oh, you know. Sometimes we give it to Hunk, when he asks. Usually everybody forgets he’s even on the ship, so for the most part we just shoot it out into space.”

Keith makes a face. “…So we’re leaving behind a trail of cow milk.”

“Uh, yeah,” Lance says. “And cow poop.” He tugs the bucket out from under Kaltenecker’s belly. “We’re lucky the alien before us toilet trained him.”

Keith leans his head back against the wall. “The Galra are gonna’ track us using milk and cow shit.”

“Or they could just track our energy signature,” Hunk points out. “Whatever the case, we’re lucky we have wormholes. Otherwise they’d be on top of us all the time.” He gives Kaltenecker’s nose a final, fond pat. “Thanks for the milk, guys.”

“No problem, homie!” Lance unfolds from his stool, raising his arms in a long stretch. “What next?”

“Well, that’s the other problem.” Hunk takes the bucket from Lance. “We can pasteurize this, but after that—I’m kinda’ at a loss. It’s like I said with the milk: I could improvise with alien ingredients, but nothing’s gonna’ taste a hundred-percent like chocolate without sugar and cocoa. So unless we find a way to magically sprout some sugarcane and cocoa beans out of the ground like, thousands of lightyears from Earth’s surface—” Hunk looks up, headband askew. “Oh.”

 

 

“No.”

“Come on, Keith.”

“No! These are some of our strongest allies. They’re busy with weapon production. We can’t just call them up over some _snack_ —”

“Well excuse me,” Lance snorts. “Here I was thinking you wanted to get Shiro a real chocolate bar. Are you ready to give up and settle for some cheap knock-off space goo already?”

Keith’s frown deepens. He stares defiantly into the monitor.

Lance’s index finger hovers over the call button. He cocks an eyebrow.

At last Keith turns to Hunk.

“Hunk,” Keith orders. “You’re the rational one. Tell Lance this is crazy.”

Hunk only shrugs.

“I don’t see the harm, honestly.” Hunk reclines against the back of his own chair. “I say give 'em a call. What’ve we got to lose?”

Keith jiggles his leg.

This is so unprofessional.

“Fine,” Keith chokes. He runs a hand through his hair. “Do it.”

Lance looks victorious. He taps the call button. The monitor flickers; there’s a wink of static. Another moment, and a surprised Olkarian face appears onscreen.

A short pause. Then a rush of color as the Olkarian scrambles to smooth down her uniform.

“The Paladins of Voltron!” The Olkarian blinks at the monitor like she can’t believe her eyes. “I’m sorry; I did not think you would call through this channel! How might we be of assistance? Is something the matter?”

“Oh, um,” Keith says. “No, nothing’s wrong—I mean, nothing more than usual. What with…the war.” Lance chokes on a laugh. “Sorry. What I mean to say is that I’m calling about a…personal project. It’s nothing urgent.”

“Oh?” the Olkarian asks, as she straightens her collar. “What sort of personal project?”

“We’re trying to make a gift for one of our teammates. It requires special plants from our home planet, but we aren’t able to travel there without putting the planet at risk.”

The Olkarian pauses her ministrations. “So you were hoping we could replicate these plants.”

“Yeah, since you can just sort of speak to the earth and grow stuff out of nothing,” Hunk says. He wiggles his fingers to emphasize the magical appeal. “We don’t want to be a bother or anything, and we understand if you’re busy.”

The Olkarian smiles, nervously but with genuine spirit. “It’s no trouble at all—we’d be happy to help. Although you should know: We cannot grow something out of nothing. The Olkari manipulate the existing elements in our planet’s soil to build more complex lifeforms. To recreate these plants of yours, we will still need to know their genetic codes.”

“Well, phooey,” Lance says. He braces his hands on his back. “Can we call you back when we figure those out?”

“Of course,” the Olkarian says. “Take as much time as you need.”

 

 

It turns out they need a lot of time. The team get about as far as the main archives folder of the castle mainframe before they hit their next roadblock.

“I can’t read this stuff,” Hunk laments. He clicks absently on a drop-down menu, frowning at the symbols that pop onscreen. Lance and Keith crowd around his shoulders, equally lost. “It’s all in Gargish.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “…Gargish?”

“The second Altean alphabet,” Hunk explains. Keith tilts his head. “There’s Albish and Gargish. Albish is the vernacular. It’s the quickest to write and the easiest to learn. Gargish is like, more detailed than Albish. The Alteans use it for more academic texts; stuff that references a lot of complex data.”

“And you can’t read it,” Lance finishes.

“No,” Hunk squawks, “because it’s impossible!” He jabs at the wispy lines on the screen. “Look at that! What does it mean? It looks like a fish. Does it mean 'fish’? I don’t know! Nobody knows.”

“Except the Alteans,” Lance muses. “And Pidge, I bet. I mean, she’s always got her nose in a computer. She must know how to navigate the system by now.”

“So we ask Pidge,” Keith concludes, defeated. He stiffens as Lance and Hunk turn to look at him. “What?”

“You threw a fit when we found out,” Hunk says. “Don’t you want to keep this on the down low?”

Keith recrosses his arms. “We just got off the phone with a representative for a whole planet. I’m pretty sure we crossed that line a while ago.”

“Well, okay,” Lance says. “Just as long as you’ve resigned yourself to your fate…”

He thumbs open a comm link on the legible part of the computer’s control panel.

There’s a hum of technology. A voice rumbles up through the speakers as though from beneath a pile of blankets.

“Lance?”

“Pigeon!” Lance beams. He slumps forward over the control panel. “Hey, we’re trying to navigate this hellscape of a computer system and we could really use some backup.”

“Too bad,” Pidge says grumpily. “I’m not wasting my tiny slice of downtime on your IT problem.”

But Lance has an ace up his sleeve. “We’re helping Keith make chocolate.”

That by now familiar moment of silence. Then a rustle on Pidge’s end of the comm channel.

“Where are you?” 

 

 

There are an abundance of logs on Earth’s terrain. Pidge whistles as she scrolls through the first round of folders.

“This is fantastic,” she says. “Normally the computers only catalogue a planet’s basic stats, but this—it looks like the Blue Lion ran a deep scan of Earth’s surface every hundred years. That’s over a thousand scans of the land surrounding the caves, with a radius of over a thousand miles.”

Hunk’s eyes are wide as saucers. “How are we gonna’ get plant compositions out of all that data?” he marvels.

“Carefully.” Pidge plucks her fingers from the keyboard; she cracks her knuckles with a practiced gesture. Lance winces at the sharp sound. “We’re gonna’ have to whittle it down bit by bit. Should we start with sugarcane or cocoa beans?”

Hunk raises a hand. “I vote sugarcane. That’ll be within a, what, two-hundred-mile radius?”

Pidge’s glasses glint under the lights. “Really?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure they still grow some in Texas. I saw an advertisement for a syrup festival in Henderson.”

“Right. I’ll narrow the search group down to that area, then.”

Lance is aghast. He grasps Hunk’s shoulder. “You saw an ad for a syrup festival within driving distance and we _didn’t go_?”

Pidge plows bravely on: “Lance. New category please.”

Lance’s fingers tighten around Hunk’s shoulder. “Category?”

“Size, weight, whatever. Traits to separate this plant from the rest of the scenery.”

“Is edibility a factor?” Keith ventures.

“Sure.” Pidge keys in a line of symbols. Several boxes on the screen rearrange themselves; others drop from view. “And now we’ve narrowed it down to edible plants within a two-hundred-mile radius of the Blue Lion’s cave.”

Lance gazes at the computer, a look of dismay on his face.

“So we just keep narrowing it down until all we have left is sugarcane?”

Pidge’s eyes never leave the computer screen. She types up another key command, and the boxes perform their coded dance. “M-hmm.”

Lance narrows his eyes. “Sure there’s no other way?”

“M-hmm.”

A disheartened pause. Pidge scratches the bridge of her nose.

“It’s not like there are pictures or anything. We find this plant by process of elimination or we don’t find it at all.”

“All right,” Keith says. He leans forward. “Is 'shape’ a possible category?”

 

 

“Seven-dash-eight-five-zero-one!”

Keith seizes upward against the back of his chair. His eyes shoot open; he whips his head to and fro. “Wha—”

“Seven-dash-eight-five-zero one!” Pidge repeats. She slams her palm against the desk, and Lance groans. “That’s the scan number of sugarcane!”

Keith combs the hair from his face; scrubs the sleep from his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“It’s within two hundred miles of the cave, edible, thicker than three centimeters but smaller than ten, taller than two meters but shorter than six, more than ten percent sugar sucrose, present within the last hundred years…”

“Quiznak, Pidge,” Lance laughs, his voice muzzy from sleep. “You found it. You actually found sugarcane.”

Pidge smiles as she drags open a separate window. “I’m sending the file to your clipboards. The chemical composition is on the right-hand column of the page.”

“Thank you, Pidge.” Keith finds the courage to clap her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I drifted off there.”

“It’s fine. You weren’t the only one.” Hunk hides a yawn behind his hand. Lance rubs his eyes. “Anyway, the night’s still young. Cocoa beans grow closer to the equator; that’s gonna’ be a much wider radius for us to comb through.”

Keith’s heart twists. Lance groans. He pulls the hood of his sweater up over his head, and yanks the strings tight until his nose is the only visible part of his face.

Keith sighs.

“Pidge—everyone,” he offers. He rubs his fingers together. “I do actually appreciate your commitment. But you don’t have to—”

Lance garbles something defiant. Keith’s brow furrows.

“What?” he says.

Lance tugs down the material over his mouth.

“I said,” he drawls, “save it, Keith. We’re in it for the long haul.”

“Lance is right. I wanna’ see this come to fruition.” Hunk raises his fist in a determined gesture. “What about you, Pidge? You up for another round?”

“Always.” Pidge erases the data culmination onscreen, then clicks open a new window. “Let’s get this party started.”

 

 

“My god,” Shiro says. “What _happened_?”

Keith struggles to keep his head up off the table. Hunk has surrendered to the pull of gravity, slumping against his chair like a melted creamsicle.

“’S fine,” Hunk slurs. “Just tired.”

Pidge downs another cup of space-coffee, her glasses foggy from the steam. Shiro makes a concerned noise.

“How late were you up?” he asks.

Lance keeps his face pressed against the table. “Ughagh.”

“Not that late,” Pidge lies. Out of everyone, she looks the least tussled. “I was teaching Lance some coding and then the others got curious.”

If Shiro is disappointed to have been left out, he doesn’t say so. “Well, make sure Allura and Coran don’t catch you like this.”

“You aren’t gonna’ chew us out?”

“Seems like you’re suffering enough already.” Shiro pulls up a chair at the table, spooning himself some breakfast goo. “Just make sure to take a nap before training today—and hope we don’t get drawn into a battle somewhere.”

“Mmf,” Hunk says, gratefully. His face still obscured, Lance raises his hand in a thumbs-up. For now, their secret stands.

 

 

The Paladins check their computers periodically over the course of the day. The Olkari get back to them a little after dinner with a confirmation notice; Pidge twists in her swivel chair as she reads their message aloud:

“'Paladins of Voltron: We have replicated your Terran plants to the best of our ability, and we hope they serve you well in your cooking endeavors. Please attach your drop-off coordinates so that we might send a cargo drone to deliver your goods. Kaevyn bless.”

Hunk leans in to read over Pidge’s shoulder. “A cargo drone? Fancy.”

Keith shakes his head. “We’re sending them a big thank-you package.”

“Well, sure.” Pidge gives her chair another twirl. “I bet they’d like chocolate.”

“Maybe. We’d better check to make sure they’re not allergic.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“But anyway,” Lance prompts, “the drop-off coordinates. Where are we gonna’ have them send the drone?”

A look of dismay crosses Keith’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “And how are we gonna’ get to it?”

A blink.

“How do you mean?”

“The Olkari are thousands of lightyears from here.” Keith’s eyes are pinned to the message on the screen. “A drone wouldn’t reach this system for another, what, hundred years?”

There’s a long silence. Lance suction-cups his lips like he’s swallowed a lemon. Pidge’s chair ticks to a stop.

“So,” Pidge concludes. “To reach the drone—”

 

 

“We need a wormhole.”

Allura looks up from her place at the main deck monitor. Her gaze flicks between the four Paladins at the foot of her platform. “What?”

Hunk takes one for the team: “We need a wormhole to get to a moon in the Lysooth delta quadrant so we can pick up some Earth plants the Olkari made us so we can make chocolate so Keith can marry Shiro.”

Allura stands there at her station, her eyes vaguely glazed. She seems to be trying to reorder the information in her head in a way that makes sense.

“What is 'marry?'” she settles on finally.

“It’s a human courtship thing,” Pidge says.

“And it’s not going to happen,” Keith adds.

“Oh,” Allura says, like that explains everything. She turns back to the main monitor and taps on a symbol. A star chart blooms onscreen. “Well then. What are the coordinates of this Lysooth moon?”

A pause. Keith turns to Hunk. Hunk turns to Pidge. Pidge shrugs.

Lance throws up his hands.

“Just like that?” he says. “You’re willing to turn the whole ship around and zip us off to some random moon at the drop of a hat? Whenever _I_ suggest we take a detour you always scold me.”

Allura raises her eyebrows. “Because your proposed 'detours’ are always overly dangerous, pointless, or absurd.”

Lance scoffs; Pidge smirks. Allura taps the left controller on the side of the monitor, and the stream of stars outside slows.

Allura pauses before she goes on: “I’ve watched the war take its toll on all of you. It’s lovely to see you all excited about something outside of battle.” A tap of fingers on the screen. “I may not understand exactly what’s going on, but I trust you to know what you’re doing. Give me the coordinates, and we can pick up your Earth plants.”

 

 

They collect the drone that night, once they know Shiro has gone to sleep; the rest takes time. Even with the Castle’s technological advances, the cacao beans require a day of fermentation, then another day to dry under the kitchen heat lamps. Once roasted, Hunk lays the beans out for the team to shell. The Paladins spend hours hunched around the kitchen counter while Shiro slumbers, shaking the stiffness from their fingers and laughing at stories from Earth.

Between the Paladin’s work and the occasional visit from Coran and Allura, a small mountain range of shelled cocoa beans accumulate on the kitchen table. This key process accomplished, Hunk moves on to the production of cocoa butter. He spends a varga warring with the kitchen’s mashers and grinders before Allura leans over, grasps a handful of beans, and wrings them out with a flex of her fingers. She’s quickly crowned the team nut-crusher, and devotes herself to the production of cocoa butter with a gleeful zeal. Hunk borrows a spare vacuum chamber from the storage room to powderize their milk, and soon they’re ready to grind together the beans, butter and milk.

“Keith should go by himself,” Pidge says, as the cocoa nibs run laps around the kitchen grinder.

Keith looks up from his seat along the countertop. “What? Where?”

“To give Shiro the chocolate, dummy.”

Keith is affronted. “No way. All of you pitched in to help; I barely even did anything. We should give it to him together.”

“Keeeeeith.” Lance leans back against the counter like his legs have turned to noodles. “What is it with you and accepting other people’s help? You don’t have to take all the credit or anything, but like, I’m pretty sure we all want you and Shiro to have your private moment.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not—”

“I agree with Pidge and Lance,” Hunk announces, all smiles. He turns away from the grinder on the counter, his hands planted on his hips. “Go get him. I mean, after we temper and mold this stuff.”

Keith looks on the edge of disagreement. In the end, he purses his lips. He peers down into the sheen of the counter, drumming his fingers on his knee.

Finally he says, “Thank you guys. For everything. I really, really owe you one.”

Smiles all around. Lance kicks the air in a celebratory gesture. “Just make sure to give us a play-by-play afterwards,” he says. “He’s gonna’ be over the moon. Just picture the look on his face—!”

 

 

It’s early the next day. Keith stands poised before Shiro’s door, his fingers bunched around a flat silver package. He rolls up onto his toes and back onto the flats of his feet, up, down, up, down…

The line of Keith’s mouth twitches. He releases one hand from the edge of the package, fed up with his own cowardice. He’s never been one to dilly dally before. With trepid fingers, Keith makes a fist. He raises his hand and knocks on Shiro’s door.

_Thunk, thunk, thunk._

The sound resonates back up through Keith’s wrist, down the length of his chest. He startles as footsteps tap out a path to the door. There’s barely time to square his shoulders before the door slides open.

“Keith?” Shiro asks. His casual attire is ruffled, his forelock adorably askew. Keith knows this look; he probably sat down to read last night and fell asleep at his desk. “What’s up? Something wrong?”

Keith plans to reply, but when he opens his mouth, no words come out. He stands hunched in Shiro’s doorway, a deer braced for death at the wheels of an oncoming semi. In twitchy increments, he raises the package, presenting it to Shiro like an offering at a shrine.

Shiro blinks—once, twice. He takes in Keith, covered in cocoa shell litter and smelling faintly of sugar, and tries for a smile, like he can’t decide whether or not to be worried.

“Um,” he begins, at length. He takes the hint and accepts Keith’s package. “What’s…?”

“Open it,” Keith orders.

Shiro raises his eyebrows. Curiosity piqued, he undoes the edges of the package. He picks at the plastic-like film beneath, until the material rolls away to reveal a dark swath of color.

It takes a while to register. Shiro stops for a moment—really _stops_ , like his whole body has turned to marble.

His eyes wide, he says,

“No. Way.”

Keith can’t stifle a smile. He feels his whole chest light up as Shiro putters back to life, his gaze torn between Keith and the chocolate bar.

“No. _Way_. Can I—?”

“Yes,” Keith huffs. In the face of Shiro’s delight, his nervousness fades to a flicker at the back of his head. “Go on.”

So Shiro lifts the chocolate bar and, with fearful gentleness, takes a bite.

It takes less than a second.

“Ho. Lee. Shit.” Shiro says. There are practically fireworks behind his eyes. Keith can’t help himself; he giggles like a schoolboy. The happiness in his heart is leaping outward. His blood is singing. “Hooooly shit.”

“Yep.”

“You made me chocolate.”

“Not me; everyone,” Keith amends. “Lance let us use the cow, and Pidge got us the plant components, and the Olkari actually made the nuts and sugar—and of course Hunk was the one to process the milk and cook the stuff together, and Allura moved the castle and pressed the cocoa butter—”

Shiro is kissing him.  

It takes Keith a moment to catch on to the fact, because the moment Shiro’s lips meet his, his mind whites out like the center of a smokebomb. His senses fail; his eyes slip closed.

_Shiro is kissing him._

Keith doesn’t know how to do this, but he doesn’t care. He melts into the hand at his cheek; tilts his head to brush his nose against Shiro’s. He pushes back into Shiro’s kiss like he can pour all the love in his heart out through his mouth.

For a while they stand there, huddled around each other beneath the arc of Shiro’s door. Finally Shiro breaks for a breath. He chuckles at the force of Keith’s kiss; not unkindly, but with radiant adoration, like he can’t believe Keith kissed him back. 

Keith barely gives him a moment to recover. He coaxes Shiro back down with a tongue at his lips.

Shiro tastes like cocoa and starlight. The skin of his neck feels like home under Keith’s fingers. As they break apart a second time, Keith reaches up a hand. He traces the line of Shiro’s scar across his nose.

Shiro’s eyes are warm, his cheeks a hearty pink. He looks at Keith like he’s his whole world.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he says. “Thank you.”  

There are words behind the ones he says aloud; ones with heady connotations. Keith feels his pulse flutter.

“No problem,” Keith says, because his brain’s still a puddle. His fingers lace through Shiro’s metal ones; Shiro’s bangs tickle his skin where he presses their foreheads together.

“Does this mean you want to marry me?” Shiro teases.

“Don’t ask a serious question unless you want a serious answer.”

Shiro stares. The fingers of his left hand clench a little tighter around the chocolate bar.

“All right,” he murmurs, like he has to muster the courage to do so. His forehead slides against Keith’s; there’s a smile on his face, wobbly and bashful. “Do you?”

In reply, Keith kisses him senseless.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from [34choco](34choco.tumblr.com)! 
> 
> Some fluff in anticipation of the sure-to-be soul-destroying roller coaster of season 4. RIP all of us.


End file.
